Andrea Spyropoulos, the Liverpool-born President of the Royal College of Nursing

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PIONEERING Liverpool has always been hailed as a city of firsts – and the medical profession has many claims to first-time fame.

For example, William Henry Duncan, aka Doctor Duncan, was Liverpool’s and the country’s first medical officer of health.

Liverpool, meanwhile, was the first city outside London to open a training school for nurses – and, in 2010, Andrea Spyropoulos became the first Liverpool-born nurse to be elected President of the Royal College of Nursing, which has 400,000 members.

Andrea, 57, who was born in the Mill Road Maternity Hospital and grew up in Howe Street, in the shadow of Great Homer Street, is now coming up for re- election (presidents can serve a maximum of two two-year terms).

And it seems only fitting that she should be holding this office at the time of the launch of the Liverpool Nursing 150 project.

She says of the anniversary celebrations: “It’s a really wonderful thing to highlight and we should feel very proud – when the Liverpool training school opened 150 years ago, there were only two others in the country, both in London. I’m delighted to see such positive recognition of our nurses, because they are such an asset to our society.”

Andrea, who went to St Anthony’s Primary and St John’s Secondary Modern schools and who lives in Aigburth, began her lengthy, varied and supremely-successful career as a cadet nurse, aged 17, at Sefton General.

She explains: “It was a pre- nursing course and my training really started aged 18, ending three years later.”

Staying on at Sefton General, she worked as a staff nurse and a sister, before training as a midwife at the Countess of Chester Hospital and later working as a nurse on a cruise liner – which led to the then Miss Styles meeting her Greek husband, Sotiris Spyropoulos.

She says: “I then returned to Liverpool and worked in all sorts of areas in the Royal Liverpool, before going to the School of Nursing as a trainee teacher.”

At Liverpool John Moores University, she spent 10 years lecturing in clinical nursing skills, specialising in legal and professional issues.

Over 40 years, Andrea has seen huge changes within the nursing profession.

“It has changed beyond all recognition,” she explains. “There have been huge developments in medical and surgical care which mean that nurses are now managing their own caseloads, working in diagnostics and having to take much more responsibility.

“Forty years ago, there was no gene therapy, there weren’t specialist cancer nurses. Now we have expert nurses working across the spectrum.

“But one thing that hasn’t changed is the culture of caring. Nurses are still the link between the patient and the rest of the hospital. The values of nursing are still based around old- fashioned words: dedication and caring.”

She has also been a non- executive director at Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology and for the last nine years has worked as a clinical strategist for London-based HCP – a global consultancy firm involved in hospital design.

The mum-of-one (Philip, 26, is a London-based lawyer) explains: “I have come right back to where I started because I’ve started at Alder Hey, working on its new hospital development. It’s very exciting and ties in with my position with the Royal College of Nursing.”

A lifelong member of the RCN, she says: “It has a professional and trade union aspect, and I believe you can have both – look after nurses and patients.”

As well as becoming the first Liverpool nurse to be elected president of the RCN, Andrea was also delighted to make her first speech as president at the ECHO arena complex last year – when, for the first time, the RCN’s annual congress was held here (it’s back again next year!)

She says: “It was very emotional making that speech, as there were many people there who knew me from my training days.”

And the prospect of returning for next year’s congress still as president? That, she says, would be “the icing on the cake.”

One of the key issues she wants to highlight is the problem of staffing.

“We did a survey of nurses recently, asking them what they didn’t have time to do on their last shift. The replies were very honest, showing that basic nursing such as feeding, cleaning and mobility is suffering from staffing shortages.

“Nursing is a wonderful job, one of the most fulfilling there is. But, if I had a wish-list, right at the top would be the need for better staffing levels to allow nurses to do what they do best.”